Tuesday, August 16, 2016

The USMC pushes ahead with Company Landing Teams.

The Marine Corps must be prepared to counter and defeat a range of adversaries in high-tech environments, leaders say. And the company landing team, which has long been considered the backbone of the infantry, could get a major makeover.Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, was tapped by Commandant Gen. Robert Neller earlier this year to help the Corps figure out what these teams need to be successful. The grunts were recently sent out to the desert in varying-sized teams, equipped with new high-tech gear like drones, robotic vehicles — some with weaponry — and self-supporting energy systems.The goal is to make this updated force, which was coined the expeditionary landing team, more self-sufficient and combat ready.Neller dropped in on the company at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms to get a close look at the gear the Marines tested. The 18-month experiment will rely heavily on user feedback from the Marines and sailors involved, who formed a company landing team during an integrated exercise here.“One of the best parts of this is [that] we're giving them some tools and seeing what they come up with — and hopefully we'll be smart enough to listen to what they tell us,” Neller told Marine Corps Times.

You are looking at a United States Marine Corps in the middle of confusion, churn and wishing on a star.

Company Landing Teams were born during the time when endless wars against terrorists that looked like they did in Afghanistan during 2011 or Iraq in 2009. It ignores the battlefield we're seeing in Syria and Ukraine today.

So instead of adjusting to the new realities they stick to concepts that were born more than two decades ago.

We are seeing the purposeful dismantling of the combined arms team in order to create a small high tech infantry force that's overly reliant on airpower with the hope they will be able to stand toe to toe with mechanized battalions of threat nations.

I personally don't think they could stand up against the hybrid forces we're seeing in the Middle East and Africa.